I love to garden. No really, I LOVE to garden. I even like pulling weeds. I can’t wait for the seed
catalogs to come and have to start a Go Fund Me site each year for my addiction. I start rearranging my
sun-room in February to get ready for seed starting in March. I have to pace myself or I end up with
tomatoes two feet tall, in little red solo cups, by April 1st. So I keep telling myself, “Not Yet!”, don’t
plant the seeds yet. I guess part of my enthusiasm comes from my winter withdraw. Fall hits, my garden
dies, and so does a little piece of my soul. I miss the fresh veggies, fresh fruit, and colorful flowers. The
store bought stuff is tasteless and depressing. So I start dreaming of ways to prolong the growing season
or start it earlier. Cold frames, starting my own seeds and having raised beds has helped but I want more.
I want to grow ALL year long!

A greenhouse! A greenhouse is what I needed. So the research began for the greenhouse that
would let me grow All year long. Regular greenhouses require a lot of heat over the night in our -20
degree Iowa winters. This was going to be a problem because we live completely off grid. No sun…no
power. No power…no heat. No heat…no plants. You get the dilemma. This was getting to be very
depressing.

Enter Mr. Russ Finch. A retired Postal worker from Alliance Nebraska and designer of the
“Greenhouse in the Snow.” It is an in-ground close to passive Geo-thermally heated greenhouse. With
his design he has been growing all kinds of citrus, pomegranates, figs, and flowers for the last 45 years in
the inhospitable climate of northwest Nebraska. Dry and cold doesn’t do justice to a wind chill that can
easily drop to well below -50 * F.

When I saw Citrus in Nebraska I was hooked. This was my greenhouse. The one that would feed
my soul and addiction year round.

If you have ever heard of a Walipini you can see the basic idea but with many improvements. The
basics of the greenhouse are a 4’ deep, 11’ wide, however many feet long (must be in increments of 6’)
long hole in the ground. Over this hole is put a hot dipped galvanized steel tube framework that is 17’
wide, 12’ high and 6’ longer (3’ on either end) then the hole is long. The south facing sun receiving side
of the structure gets covered with 6’ x 20’ sheets of UV protected Lexan. The north side is covered with
corrugated steel and should be well insulated (spray in works the best). One end of the greenhouse will
have a “cold room”. This is basically used in the heating and cooling of the greenhouse as well as storage
or whatever you want.

As for warming the greenhouse through the winter there are two ways this can be done, both being
Geo-thermal. The way Russ heated his greenhouse, and the way that they were always built until about
two years ago was with 4” diameter corrugated tubes (1 tube for every 6’ of greenhouse length) buried 8’
underground each 230’ or more in length. All tubes start in the north west corner of the greenhouse, go
down 8’, run 230’ underground and pop up on the south east side. The tubes are then fitted with a blower.
The blower pulls air through the tubes and circulates throughout the greenhouse. At 8’ deep the ground
temp is consistent. In Alliance it is 52F, and where I live it is 55F. The ground temp is usually
whatever the average temp for the year is in your area.

In the last 2 years a new water to air Geo-thermal system using three 800’ long 1” diameter tubes
can be used. These tubes are buried under the greenhouse floor. Two 8’ deep and the third 6’ deep. It
helps with less excavation and decreases the total foot print of the greenhouse as the 4’ corrugated tubes
cannot be buried under the greenhouse. Now, with a very minimal amount of electricity you can run one
of these two systems and warm your greenhouse above freezing even in the -20* nights.

I got to tour Russ’s original greenhouse on a freezing (-10*F) snowing (4” already) February day.
During the week of ou

r visit they had already received 10 or so inches of snow and Russ hadn’t gotten to
cleaning off his greenhouse so he wasn’t getting much solar gain during the day and the week had been
overcast each day. The nights and days had been in the negatives yet his greenhouse was sitting at about
45 degrees on that snowy freezing afternoon. He had oranges and lemons hanging on the trees. Orchids
and pomegranates were blooming and everything was still green. He said he might run one of those
forced air portable propane heaters just in case that night. I asked how often he had to do that and he said
he could count the number of times over the last 40 years on one hand.

Growing citrus in Iowa (check) having strawberries in the dead of winter (check) zucchini and
carrots and cabbage Oh My! I’m in . . . Greenhouse in the Snow, here I come.